My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field Part 20

None of them were wounded, but they were bruised, wrenched, and their nice clothes covered with dirt.

At night there was a storm, with vivid lightning and heavy thunder. The mortars kept up their fire. It was a sublime spectacle,--earth against heaven, but the artillery of the skies was the best.

You would have given a great deal, I dare say, to have seen all this; but there is another side to the story. Can you eat dirt? Can you eat grease in all its forms,--baked, boiled, fried, simmered? Can you bear variegated b.u.t.ter, variable in taste and smell? Can you get along with ham, hash, and beans for breakfast, beans, hash, and ham for dinner, and hash, ham, and beans for supper, week after week, with fat in all its forms, with cakes solid enough for grape-shot to fire at the Rebels, with blackest coffee and the nearest available cow fifty miles off?--with sour mola.s.ses, greasy griddle-cakes, with Mississippi water thick with the filth of the great valley of the West, with slime from the Cincinnati slaughter-houses, sweepings from the streets, slops from the steamboats, with all the miasma and mould of the forests? The fairest countenance soon changes to a milk and mola.s.ses color, and energy lags, and strength becomes weakness under such living.

In boyhood, at the sound of a bugle, a drum, or the roar of a cannon, how leaped the blood through my veins! But it becomes an old story. I was quartered within a stone's-throw of the mortars, which fired all night long, and was not disturbed by the explosions. One becomes indifferent to everything. You get tired of watching the cannonade, and become so accustomed to the fire of the enemy, that after a while you do not heed a shot that ploughs up the dirt or strikes the water near at hand.

General Pope sent word, that, if he had transports and a gunboat, he could cross to the Tennessee sh.o.r.e and take the batteries in the rear.

The river was very high and the country overflowed. Near New Madrid there is a bayou, which is the outlet of a small lake. It was determined to cut a ca.n.a.l through the forest to the lake. Colonel Bissell with his regiment of engineers went to work. Four steamboats were fitted up, two barges, with cannon on board, were taken in tow, and the expedition started. They sailed over a cornfield, where the tall stalks were waving and swinging in the water, steamed over fences, and came to the woods.

There were great trees, which must be cut away. The engineers rigged their saws for work under water. The path was fifty feet wide and the trees were cut off four feet below the surface. In eight days they cut their way to New Madrid, a distance of twelve miles. In one place they cut off seventy-five trees, all of which were more than two feet in diameter.

While this was doing, Commodore Foote kept the Rebels awake by a regular and continuous bombardment, mainly upon the upper battery. He determined to capture it.

On the night of the 1st of April, an armed expedition is fitted out from the squadron and the land forces. There are five boats, manned by picked crews from the gunboats, carrying forty men of the Forty-second Illinois, under command of Colonel Roberts. The party numbers one hundred. It is a wild night. The wind blows a gale from the south, swaying the great trees of the forest and tossing up waves upon the swift-running river, which boils, bubbles, dashes, and foams in the storm. There are vivid lightning flashes, growls and rolls of deep, heavy thunder. The boats cast off from the fleet. The oars have been m.u.f.fled. No words are spoken. The soldiers sit, each with his gun half raised to his shoulder and his hand upon the lock. The spray dashes over them, sheets of flame flash in their faces. All the landscape for a moment is as light as day, and then all is pitch darkness.

Onward faster and faster they sweep, driven by the strong arms of the rowers and the current. It is a stealthy, noiseless, rapid, tempestuous, dangerous, daring enterprise. They are tossed by the waves, but they glide with the rapidity of a race-horse. Two sentinels stand upon the parapet. A few rods in rear is a regiment of Rebels. A broad lightning-flash reveals the descending boats. The sentinels fire their guns, but they are mimic flashes.

"Lay in quick!" shouts Colonel Roberts.

The oars bend in the row-locks. A stroke, and they are beside the parapet, climbing up the slippery bank. The sentinels run. There is a rattling fire from pistols and muskets; but the shots fall harmlessly in the forest. A moment,--and all the guns are spiked. There is a commotion in the woods. The sleeping Rebels are astir. They do not rally to drive back the invaders, but are fleeing in the darkness.

Colonel Roberts walks from gun to gun, to see if the work has been effectually accomplished.

"All right! All aboard! Push off!" He is the last to leave. The boats head up-stream. The rowers bend to their oars. In a minute they are beyond musket range. Their work is accomplished, and there will be no more firing from that six-gun battery. Now the gunboats can move nearer and begin their work upon the remaining batteries.

In the morning General Mackall was much chagrined when he found out what had been done by the Yankees. It is said he used some hard words. He flew into a rage, and grew red in the face, which did not help the matter in the least.

At midnight, on the night of the 3d of April, the Carondelet, commanded by Captain Walke, ran past the batteries and the island. It was a dark, stormy night. But the sentinels saw her coming down in the darkness, and every cannon was brought to bear upon the vessel. Sh.e.l.ls burst around her; solid shot, grape, and canister swept over her; but she was not struck, although exposed to the terrific fire over thirty minutes. We who remained with the fleet waited in breathless suspense to hear her three signal-guns, which were to be fired if she pa.s.sed safely. They came,--boom! boom! boom! She was safe. We cheered, hurrahed, and lay down to sleep, to dream it all over again.

The Carondelet reached New Madrid. The soldiers of General Pope's army rushed to the bank, and gave way to the wildest enthusiasm.

"Three cheers for the Carondelet!" shouted one. Their caps went into the air, they swung their arms, and danced in ecstasy.

"Three more for Commodore Foote!"

"Now three more for Captain Walke!"

"Three more for the Navy!"

"Three more for the Cabin-Boy!"

So they went on cheering and shouting for everything till they were hoa.r.s.e.

The next day the Carondelet went down the river as far as Point Pleasant, had an engagement with several batteries on the Tennessee sh.o.r.e, silenced them, landed and spiked the guns. The next night the Pittsburg, Captain Thompson ran the blockade safely. The four steamboats which had worked their way through the ca.n.a.l were all ready. The Tenth, Sixteenth, Twenty-first, and Fifty-first Illinois regiments were taken on board. The Rebels had a heavy battery on the other side of the river, at a place called Watson's Landing. The Carondelet and Pittsburg went ahead, opened fire, and silenced it. The steamers advanced. The Rebels saw the preparations and fled towards Tiptonville. By midnight General Pope had all his troops on the Tennessee sh.o.r.e. General Paine, commanding those in advance, pushed on towards Tiptonville and took possession of all the deserted camps. The Rebels had fled in confusion, casting away their guns, knapsacks, clothing, everything, to escape.

When the troops in the batteries heard what was going on in their rear, they also fled towards Tiptonville. General Pope came up with them the next morning and captured all who had not escaped. General Mackall and two other generals, nearly seven thousand prisoners, one hundred and twenty-three pieces of artillery, seven thousand small arms, and an immense amount of ammunition and supplies fell into the hands of General Pope. The troops on the island, finding that they were deserted, surrendered to Commodore Foote. It was almost a bloodless victory, but one of great importance, opening the Mississippi River down to Fort Pillow, forty miles above Memphis.

When the State of Tennessee was carried out of the Union by the treachery of Governor Harris, and other men in high official position, there were some men in the western part of the State, as well as the eastern, who remained loyal. Those who were suspected of loving the Union suffered terrible persecutions. Among them was a citizen of Purdy.

His name was Hurst. He told me the story of his wrongs.

Soon after the State seceded, he was visited by a number of men who called themselves a vigilance committee. They were fierce-looking fellows, armed with pistols and knives.

"We want you to come with us," said the leader of the gang.

"What do you want of me?"

"We will let you know when you get there."

Mr. Hurst knew that they wanted to take him before their own self-elected court, and went without hesitation.

He was questioned, but would not commit himself by any positive answer, and, as they could not prove he was in favor of the Union, they allowed him to go home.

But the ruffians were not satisfied, and in a few days had him up again.

They tried hard to prove that he was opposed to the Confederacy, but he had kept about his own business, had refrained from talking, and they could not convict him. They allowed him to go for several months. One day, in September, 1861, while at work in his field, the ruffians came again. Their leader had a red face, bloated with whiskey, chewed tobacco, had two pistols in his belt, and a long knife in a sheath. He wore a slouched hat, and was a villanous-looking fellow.

"Come, you scoundrel. We will fix you this time," said the captain of the band.

"What do you want of me?"

"You are an Abolitionist,--a Yankee spy. That's what you are. We'll make you stretch hemp this time," they said, seizing him and marching him into town, with their pistols c.o.c.ked. Six or eight of them were ready to shoot him if he should attempt to escape. They called all who did not go for secession Abolitionists.

"I am not an Abolitionist," said Hurst.

"None of your sa.s.s. We know what you are, and if you don't hold your jaw, we will stop it for you."

They marched him through the village, and the whole population turned out to see him. He was taken to the jail, and thrust into a cage, so small that he could not lie down,--a vile, filthy place. The jailer was a brutal, hard-hearted man,--a rabid secessionist. He chuckled with delight when he turned the key on Hurst. He was kept in the cage two days, and then taken to Nashville, where he was tried before a military court.

He was charged with being opposed to the Confederacy, and in favor of the Union; also that he was a spy.

Among his accusers were some secessionists who owed him a grudge. They invented lies, swore that Hurst was in communication with the Yankees, and gave them information of all the movements of the Rebels. This was months before General Grant attacked Donelson, and Hurst was two hundred miles from the nearest post of the Union army; but such was the hatred of the secessionists, and they were so bloodthirsty, that they were ready to hang all who did not hurrah for Jeff Davis and the Confederacy.

He was far from home. He was not permitted to have any witnesses, and his own word was of no value in their estimation. He was condemned to be hung as a spy.

They took him out to a tree, put the rope round his neck, when some of his old acquaintances, who were not quite so hardened as his accusers, said that the evidence was not sufficient to hang him. They took him back to the court. He came under heavy bonds to report himself often and prove his whereabouts.

He was released, and went home, but his old enemies followed him, and dogged him day and night.

He discovered that he was to be again arrested. He told his boy to harness his horse quick, and take him to a side street, near an apothecary's shop. He looked out of the window, and saw a file of soldiers approaching to arrest him. He slipped out of the back door, gained the street, and walked boldly through the town.

"There he goes!" said a fellow smoking a cigar on the steps of the hotel. A crowd rushed out of the bar-room to see him. They knew that he was to be arrested; they expected he would be hung.

As he walked into the apothecary's shop, he saw his boy coming down the alley with his horse. He did not dare to go down the alley to meet him, for the crowd would see his attempt to escape. They saw him enter the door, and rushed across the street to see the fun when the soldiers should arrive.

"Come in here," he said to the apothecary, as he stepped into a room in the rear, from which a door opened into the alley.

The apothecary followed him, wondering what he wanted.

Hurst drew a pistol from his pocket, and held it to the head of the apothecary, and said, "If you make any noise, I will blow your brains out!" He opened the door, and beckoned to his boy, who rode up. "I have four friends who are aiding me to escape," said he. "They will be the death of you if you give the alarm; but if you remain quiet, they will not harm you." He sprang upon his horse, galloped down the alley, and was gone.

The apothecary dared not give the alarm, and was very busy about his business when the soldiers came to arrest Hurst.